June 04, 2009: FedEx will take some $1.2 billion in charges against its fiscal fourth quarter earnings, including charges against its purchased Kinko’s and Watkins Motor Lines businesses, the company announced Wednesday.

Click here to read more at The Journal of Commerce.

May 26, 2009: Thousands of UPS Teamsters have signed a petition calling on the International Union to take up a national grievance on the company’s elimination of Article 22.3 full-time jobs at the next national grievance panel in Philadelphia, June 8 to 11.

Our 1997 UPS strike victory won contract language that requires UPS to maintain a minimum of 20,000 combo jobs—full-time jobs that are created by combining 40,000 part-time jobs. Management is violating this language and eliminating full-time combo jobs through layoffs and by not filling vacant positions.

Enforcing the contract would make UPS create thousands of more good full-time jobs.

UPS stewards have contacted Package Division Director Ken Hall to request a meeting before the national grievance panel to deliver the petitions, provide information about full-time job elimination in more than 25 local unions, and discuss what union action can be taken to enforce the contract.

Click here to read the letter to Ken Hall.

TDU will inform members of Brother Hall’s response and continue to monitor UPS full-time job elimination.

May 27, 2009: When UPS management tried to get rid of an assertive Oklahoma steward, they didn’t know what they were in for.

Members and local officials mobilized to put the member back to work. And a few days later the center manager was out of a job.

March 30 was a wet, stormy day in Oklahoma. Doug Hisle, a package car driver out of the Lawton building, was delivering his route on a dirt road.

When he was pulling out of one stop, Hisle lightly tapped a customer’s mailbox. He didn’t feel the impact, and he didn’t see the scratch because his car was caked in mud.

The customer didn’t report the incident until six hours later—even though she was standing in her yard when Hisle made his delivery.

Hisle reported the scratch the next day, as soon as he saw it.

When management called in Doug for questioning, he explained that he didn’t know about the scratch until the next day. But they wouldn’t listen to his story. Management terminated Hisle for failing to report an accident—even though they had no evidence that Hisle knew about the incident before he reported it.

Targeting a Steward

“There’s no doubt in my mind why they went after Doug,” said Karl Howeth, another steward in the Lawton building. “He’s an assertive steward. He isn’t afraid to confront management when other drivers’ jobs are on the line.”

UPS management in Lawton is pushing production, and Doug has helped protect drivers: “Management tries to intimidate drivers who file for 9.5,” Howeth said. “But working with Doug we’ve been able to get most of our drivers on the 9.5 opt-in list.”

Rank-and-file members and the local union prepared a two-pronged plan to get Hisle’s job back. And they took management totally off-guard.

In Lawton, several concerned drivers talked to management and said that Doug was being treated unfairly.

Members networked with stewards at other buildings, and soon members were raising the issue in Enid, Norman, and Oklahoma City.

Hisle worked with the officers of the local to prepare his case for a local-level meeting with management. “The facts of the case showed that management had made a hasty decision and there was no just cause for my termination,” Hisle said.

“My local officers really went to bat for me,” Hisle said. It worked and Hisle got his job back.

Just a few days later, his center manager came in to work, put in his letter of resignation, and walked out the door.

“Sometimes you have to take the fight to UPS management,” Hisle said.

Are you helping a member out who is facing unfair discipline? Go to tdu.org/justcause to learn more about the seven tests of just cause.

Doug HisleTake the Fight to UPS

“The facts of the case showed that management had made a hasty decision and there was no just cause for my termination.

“My local officers really went to bat for me. Sometimes you have to take the fight to UPS management.”
Doug Hisle, Steward
Local 886, Lawton, Oklahoma

June 3, 2009: UPS is implementing new technology that allows management to monitor drivers like never before.

UPS’s new spyware began with an upgrade to the DIAD software that the company calls ODSE (On Demand Services Enhancement). The software allows management to monitor drivers’ routes on a computer screen in the center. Management can call up a snapshot of the entire center or any individual or combination of routes.

The company says that the technology gives the center better information when dispatching a driver for a pickup or sending a driver to help out another driver. But many Teamsters have had management use ODSE to question them about their route, leaving trace, etc.

ODSE provides both more and less information than GPS. The system lets management monitor recommended trace, service levels of packages on the truck, the number of packages and stops delivered, the location of on-call air and one-time pick-ups and more.

But all this information is based on the DIAD, not GPS. Management cannot call up the actual location of a package car, just the location that was last entered on the DIAD.

Spyware on Steroids

All that changes with telematics, a new system that uses computer technology to combine data UPS gathers through GPS, the DIAD board and new sensors that are being mounted on package cars in pilot areas.

Through more than 200 sensors, management can monitor when you drive with your seatbelt off or your bulkhead door open. Telematics tells management how long you stopped at each location, how many packages you processed there, and creates an over-allowed figure for each stop.

The new technology changes the ballgame at UPS. Now, every minute of every day is an OJS ride. Drivers who only follow the methods during a ride-along will need to adjust.

Remember that Article 6 of the contract states that no employees shall be discharged based solely upon information from GPS or any successor system unless he or she engages in dishonesty.

Don’t place your job in jeopardy. Don’t sign for packages or show an attempt where none was made. Don’t scan Next Day Air before you actually make the stop in order to show an on-time delivery. Do take your breaks and properly record them.

Look for a special report on telematics in the next issue of Convoy Dispatch. UPS Teamsters who are living under telematics today will report how management uses the new system to try to increase production and trip up drivers—and how you can protect yourself.

UPS is implementing new technology that allows management to monitor package car drivers like never before. Telematics combines data gathered through GPS, the DIAD board and new sensors that are being mounted on package cars.

Click here to see an example of a Telematics printout that management uses to monitor drivers.

Through more than 200 sensors, management can monitor when you drive with your seatbelt off or your bulkhead door open, how many times you have driven in reverse and how far and much more.

Telematics tells management how long you stopped at each location, how many packages you processed there, and creates an over-allowed figure for each stop.

Click here to see an example of a Telematics printout that management uses to monitor drivers. This example is 14 pages of data on one driver for one day.

May 6, 2009: In 2008, the Baltimore Local 355 Pension Fund dropped over $100 million—but a new law will let the fund stay in the Green Zone for one more year.

TDU Workshop & Cookout This Saturday Maryland Teamsters are coming together for an educational workshop on “Building Power to Win Grievances.” This workshop and cookout is your chance to meet and talk with other Local 355 members who are working to improve the union. Click here to download a flyer for the event.

The fund’s assets dropped from over $335 million on Dec. 31, 2007 to $229 million on Dec. 31, 2008, a decline of 31.5 percent. In April, actuaries for the Baltimore fund certified that the fund is in critical status—or the Red Zone.

But under the Worker, Retiree, and Employer Recovery Act of 2008, the fund trustees elected to keep the fund in the Green Zone for 2009.

Congress passed the new law in late 2008 to provide temporary relief to pension funds that are struggling to meet the funding requirements of the Pension Protection Act (PPA). The new law lets funds “freeze” their funding status from 2008 for 2009.

Without the new law, the PPA would have required the fund to create a funding improvement plan—that could have meant cuts for early retirement.

The good news for Baltimore Teamsters is that their fund has an extra year to recover from the devastation on Wall Street.

The bad news is that they could face cuts again next year if their fund doesn’t improve.

What do you think? Click here to send your comments or suggestion to Teamsters for a Democratic Union.

Download the fund’s Annual Funding Notice and WRERA Notice

April 30, 2009: UPS Teamsters are petitioning the International Union to protect full-time jobs at the national grievance panel in June.

Petitions are due May 15. There is still plenty of time to circulate the petition and stand up for the full-time jobs we won in the 1997 UPS strike.

Management is violating Article 22.3 of our contract which requires the company to maintain 20,000 full-time combo jobs. The company is thousands of jobs short of the 20,000 quota—and is eliminating more full-time combo jobs every day.

The International Union has the power to make UPS return laid off Teamsters to work and create more full-time combo jobs.

The goal of the petition drive is to get the International Union to use this power by taking up a national grievance on Article 22.3 violations at the next national grievance panel, June 8-11 in Philadelphia.

Please return signed petitions to Make UPS Deliver by May 15 so they can be delivered to International Union Vice President and Package Division Director Ken Hall in advance of the national grievance panel.

Click here to download the petition.

Send completed petitions to Make UPS Deliver, 104 Montgomery St. #4, Brooklyn, NY 11225, or fax them toll-free to 1-866-860-9331.

Concerned members are working hard in these final weeks to get as many petitions signed as possible. Here’s what they’re doing:

“There are about twenty missing jobs in Sharonville—and we’re taking action to get the jobs we deserve.”

Sam Bucalo, Local 100 Steward Sharonville, Ohio

 “I took time off and got hundreds of signatures. Members know in this economy we’ve got to protect full-time jobs.

John Collins, Local 509 Steward Myrtle Beach, South Carolina

“We’re retired, but we still want to help our union. We got a lot of support for this petition drive in Local 71.”

Brad Colesworthy and Wayne Turner, Retired Charlotte, North Carolina

May 1, 2009: If you are a UPS Teamster in the West or the East, then the problems in the Central States Pension Fund won’t affect you, right? Wrong.

UPS’s pullout has financially devastated the Central States Pension Fund. And the company plan that replaced it is a ticking time bomb of retirement insecurity for nearly 50,000 UPS Teamsters in the Central and Southern Regions.

This may not affect your pension directly, if you’re a UPS Teamster in the East or West. But it will affect your contract and your future. The new problems in the Central States gives the company leverage that management will use to try to win nationwide concessions in the next contract. Just like they did in the last one.

Ticking Time Bomb

One ticking time bomb is the expiring pension guarantee for UPS Teamsters in the Central and Southern Regions (the areas formerly covered by the Central States Fund). Right now, UPS guarantees members’ pensions if the Central States Pension Fund is unable to pay them.

But when the contract expires in 2013, UPS management will no longer have to guarantee these pensions. With the Central States Pension Fund in bad shape, our union will have to negotiate an extension of this protection so that UPS Teamsters won’t lose their pensions if the Central States Fund fails.

Management will surely demand concessions in 2013, and not just in the Central States, in return for renewing the pension guarantee.

Here’s a second ticking time bomb. The UPS company plan that Central and Southern Teamsters are now in pays the lowest pension benefits in the country. The tens of thousands of UPS Teamsters in this fund need, and deserve, to bring their benefits in line with pensions in the East and West. That will be a costly improvement. UPS is sure to demand concessions in return.

In the last contract, UPS used the problems in the Central States Pension Fund to extract concessions from every UPS Teamster. Management has a plan to do the same in 2013.

The Hoffa administration didn’t have a plan to stop concessions and protect our pensions when UPS was making record profits. Why should we believe they will do better next time?

The good news is that there is an International Union election in 2011. UPS Teamsters will be able to vote out the Hoffa administration and replace them with new leadership and a new direction before we get to the bargaining table.

April 10, 2009: Volume is down at UPS and layoffs are up. Our union can’t reverse the economic slowdown—but our union can protect Teamster jobs by holding UPS to the contract.

UPS has responded to the economic slowdown with record layoffs and job cuts.

Drivers across the country are reporting an increase in OJS’s. In many areas, 9.5 violations (excessive overtime) are also up.

Full-time combo jobs are being eliminated in violation of the contract.

Supervisors working is an epidemic problem—and another Teamster job-killer.

Management’s plan is obvious: get more work out of fewer employees.

We need a Teamster plan to respond. We can’t stop every layoff or tell UPS how to run their business. But our union can and should be enforcing contract language that protects Teamster jobs.

In this special report, Convoy Dispatch puts a spotlight on contract violations that are destroying Teamster jobs—and what Teamster members are doing about it.